(La mistica della guerra: spiritualità delle armi nel Cristianesimo e nell'Islam, Fazi, Rome, 2003; 254 pages; Introduction by Franco Cardini). Original in Italian.
ENTIRELY TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH AND UPDATED TO 2015
ENTIRELY TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH AND UPDATED TO 2015
Available also in German, Portuguese and Hungarian.
FIELDS: Islamic
Terrorism – Jihad – Islamic Religion – History of Christianity – Religious Violence
– Psychology of Violence
WHAT IS ITS
PECULIARITY: It’s a
full-documented analysis for an in-depth understanding of religious terrorism
and violence on the basis of its religious, spiritual and psychological
motivations. A systematic comparison between religious violence in Islam and in
the Christian tradition, as well as in other religions (Judaism etc.), is
carried out throughout the book.
AUDIENCE
AND MARKET: General,
non-specialist reader. But also suitable for academic audience.
....................
The Mystique of War is a work intended to
cast a new, discomfiting light on the much debated issue of holy war and
religious violence, today more timely than ever: no longer a purely historical,
political, sociological analysis, as many are, but a fundamentally different
reading, which puts the more specific, more fundamental, more crucial aspect of
holy war front and center: viz., religion. Osama bin Laden, Hamas, Isis—all realities
that we will fail to completely understand and will, therefore, fail to deal
with more appropriately as long as we fail to penetrate their
world, their view of existence—a
view that, far from being based on economic and nationalistic interests alone,
also exhibits deep religious motives. Understanding the political motives
behind armed fundamentalism will be of little use if we fail to understand the
spiritual ones. Even in concrete instances such as that of the Caliphate of the
Islamic State, it is decidedly of little use, as history has recently shown, to
try to solve the problem according to our own subjective political or military
criteria. Indeed, that society is not our society—western
society: it is still imbued with a strong religious drive, which we have long
forgotten and which we are no longer in a position to understand. We cannot
address the problem of Isis or that of the terrorists who attacked Charlie
Hebdo in Paris, using criteria from our secular political science if
we do not also try to understand it, more particularly, in light of their mentality and religion.
It
is in this spirit that The Mystique of War will
explore the world of fundamentalism in an attempt to find the “spirituality of
war”—a dimension that, if especially obvious in Islam today, is nevertheless a
common legacy of almost all cultures and religions. Through a broad overview of
the warrior spirituality of the Bible and the Koran, of crusaders and mujahidin,
of samurai and Aztec priests, we will show how war, in many traditions, can
become a path to justice and dignity, a means of liberation for themselves and
for others, a means of mystical ascesis.
This
book is, in some way, an attempt to penetrate the minds and hearts of those who
believed, or still believe, in the holiness of war. What could persuade a man
to kill or be killed in the name of God or the Spirit? One answer to that question can be
found in innumerable ancient and modern texts, widely cited throughout this
book: you will read passages from Khomeini, Bin Laden, Japanese monks, Saint
Bernard, Pius V, the charters of the Teutonic
Knights and Crusader bans. It will become clear that
the idea of holy war, both military and spiritual, albeit very much present in
almost all religions, was especially developed, theorized and lived out in
Christianity: largely overlooked passages from Saint Augustine, Saint Thomas
Aquinas and Luther, from Greek Orthodox combatants against the Turks and from
Cardinal Ottaviani will clearly show this to be so.
The Mystique of War presents a somewhat
provocative challenge: let us refrain from an a priori judgment and condemnation of armed fundamentalists (past
and present). Let us first try to get close to them so that we may hear them
out, get at their motives. Then, if need be, we will fight them.
DETAILED INDEX
PREFACE
1. THE HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY OF
VIOLENCE IN CHRISTIANITY
- Jesus
- The Old Testament
- The New Testament
- The First Three Centuries of Christianity
- Constantine and the Birth of the Christian
Empire
- Saint Ambrose and Saint Jerome
- Saint Augustine and Saint Gregory the Great
- Unanimity or Contradiction in the Doctrine of
the Church Fathers?
- Charlemagne
- The Papal Magisterium before the Crusades
- The Crusades
- Saint Bernard and the Chivalric Orders
- The Teutonic Knights
- Innocent III, the Crusades against the
Heretics and the Inquisition
- Canon
Law and the Ecumenical Councils
- Saint Louis IX
- Saint Francis of Assisi
- Saint Thomas Aquinas
- Saint Joan of Arc
- The Crusades against the Turks
- Luther and Protestantism
- The Wars of Conversion and Extermination in
the Americas
- Saint Pius V
- Saint Robert Bellarmine
- The French Revolution and the Italian
Risorgimento
- The Church before the Vatican II Council
- After the Vatican II Council
- The Orthodox Church
2. THE
HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY OF VIOLENCE IN ISLAM
- The Koran
- Mohammed
- The Companions of the Prophet
- Ali ibn Abi Talib
- The Theorists of Jihad in the Middle Ages
- Islam vis-à-vis the Crusades
- After the Crusades
- Islam vis-à-vis Colonialism
- The Muslim Brotherhood and the Return to
Fundamentalism
- Jihad against the Jews and Hajj Amin
al-Hussaini
- Hamas
- Abdullah Azzam
- Sayyid Qutb
- Maududi
- Khomeini
- “Londonistan” and Islamic Terrorism
- Suicide Attacks
- Osama Bin Laden
- Al-Qaeda: Zawahiri and Zarqawi
- Isis or Islamic State
- Extermination of the Infidel
- Killing those who offend the Prophet
- Taking Prisoners and Slaves
- Cruelties and Savage Killings carried out by
Isis
3. THE MISTIQUE OF THE CRUSADES
AND THE MISTIQUE OF JIHAD
- A Koranic School
- A Friday Sermon at the Mosque
- Setting off in the Path of God
- Matthatias and His Sons
- Pope Pius X
- God is Most Great
- “Poverty is My Source of Pride”
- “Procurator pauperum Christi”
- A Speech by the Archbishop of Paris in 1852
- The Edict of Urban II
- The Relaunching of Jihad
- Gregory VII and Innocent III
- The Peace of God and the Peace of the World
- “We would rather die”
- Strategic Alliances
- The Monastic Life
- The Daily Life of the Templars
- The Defense of the Holy Land
- The Vigil of Prayer
- The Investiture of Knighthood
- Songs of Crusade
- Liber ad Milites Templi
- The Inner War
- Fortified Monasteries
- The Desert and Nature
- Banditry and Terrorism
- The Appeal of Killing
- The Appeal of Dying
- Nature Allied with God against Man
- Snow and Blood
- Christ Crucified
- Faith in God
- The Extermination of the Midianites and
Amalekites
- “Terror alone shall make you understand”
4. THE WAR SPIRITUALITY IN OTHER CULTURES AND
RELIGIONS
-
Judaism
-
Hinduism
-
Buddhism
- Confucianism and Taoism
- American Indians
----------------------------------
COMPARISON
WITH COMPETING BOOKS:
- Philippe
Buc, Holy War, Martyrdom and Terror, Haney Foundation Series, 2015. It
deals only with Christian tradition, without comparison with Islam and other
cultures, and doesn’t consider the specifically spiritual-mystical aspect of
war.
- Karen Armstrong,
Holy War: The Crusades and Their Impact on Today’s World, Anchor Books,
2001. Similar to my book in some way, but it deals mostly with the Crusades and
today’s conflicts in the Middle East; it does not examine the Christian and Islamic
war theology outside the framework of Middle East. Moreover it does not
consider the specifically spiritual-mystical aspect of religious violence.
- Heath A.
Thomas, Holy War in the Bible: Christian Morality and an Old Testament
Problem, IVP Academic, 2013. It deals only with the Bible and the Christian
world.
- Peter L.
Bergen, Holy War, Inc.: Inside the Secret World of Osama bin Laden, Free
Press, 2002. It deals only with today’s Islamic fundamentalism.
- Sohail H.
Hashmi, Just Wars, Holy Wars, and Jihads: Christian, Jewish, and Muslim
Encounters and Exchanges, Oxford University Press, 2012. Similar to my book
in some way, but it doesn’t deal with the spiritual-mystical aspect of
religious violence and does not make a comparison with other cultures and
religions.
- James
Turner Johnson, The Holy War Idea in Western and Islamic Traditions, The
Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997.
Same considerations as those for the book of Sohail H. Hashmi.
- Andrew J.
Bostom M.D., The Legacy of Jihad, Prometheus Books, 2008. It deals only
with Islamic tradition.
- Bernard
Lewis, The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror, Random House,
2004. It deals only with Islam.
